Pages

08 July, 2010

I don't drink a lot of 6FTM, it mostly being bargain-basement filler. Some of their older cakes, though, can be really very proper. This is one of them - thanks to Keng for generously sending us an entire cake.

The Fengqing Lushi

I love wrappers from the charmingly naive era before it they became designed in Photoshop - they're so lo-fi and "real".

Unusually for such a brand, this cake has its provenance clearly stated: Majie village, near Lushi town, in Fengqing county, which makes this a Lincang [lin-tsang] cake. The wrapper also indicates that its production was limited (!) to 2000 kg; i.e., exactly 800 tong.

I drink this at 5 a.m. The sun is up already, and the birds' dawn chorus is deafening. The warm air and birdsong gives our chilly old country a distinctly tropical feeling, this morning.

Powerful, woody, and malty, this tea bites back and has some character. The woodiness is particularly sharp, as if arrived at naturally from a state of original bitterness. Tons of caffeine from this cake leave me wide-eyed and ready for the day. Let it be remembered that 6FTM can (or at least could) make very decent cakes.